(GK: Garrison Keillor; SS: Sue Scott: TR: Tim Russell, RD: Rich Dworsky)
(SURF AMBIENCE)
SS: You here to surf?
GK: No, I don't surf. I come to look at the ocean.
SS: Oh. ----- I thought maybe you were a surfer. You look like a surfer.
GK: No, I'm an English major and a poet.
SS: You're an English major!!???? With that wild tangled blond hair and the deep tan and the slender yet powerful body and the little tiny swimsuit and the beautiful leg hair???
GK: Yes, I'm an English major. I majored in English.
SS: I don't know what to say.
GK: That's okay. I'll say it for you. You're tall, young, incredibly beautiful, and you feel at home here on the beach, feeling the sun, the wind, the water, the sensuous elemental realities. And yet you also long for a life of the mind. The play of language. The electric charge of ideas. A luminous sense of narrative in your life.
SS: Yes! A luminous sense of narrative! I never knew what it was before!
GK: That's my job to tell you. As an English major.
SS: I used to like English in school.
GK: I could help you learn to like it again.
SS: Could you? Could you teach me about narrative?
GK: I have an idea for a whole new narrative in your life, Shoshana.
SS: How did you know my name?
GK: It's stitched right there. On your tanktop.
TR (KEANU): Hey, Shoshana, I thought we were going to split? Like, where are you with that, anyway?
SS: I ain't with you anymore, Kyle.
GK: I'm NOT with you anymore, Kyle.
TR (KEANU): I wasn't hoping for that, okay, dude?
SS: I need a narrative in my life, Kyle. I ain't never had one before.
GK: I HAVEN'T ever had one before.
SS: You neither?
TR (KEANU): You ain't going with a nobody like him, are you???? Why would a total babe like you want to hang with an E.M., huh?
GK: Because. She wants a man with a command of the English language. An English major.
TR (KEANU): Hear me, dude. Get smaller, okay? This is our beach.
GK: Never threaten a writer, Kyle. We can immortalize you in ways you might not find pleasant.
SS: I love the way you talk. I just love it.
TR (KEANU): Just you wait. I'll bust the lead in your pencil, dude. (HE SULKS OFF)
GK: An English major has no fear. Because we know that the future belongs to people with excellent communication skills.
SS: Oh, you are so strong-----
GK: A message from the Professional Organization of English Majors.
© Garrison Keillor 2001